Author
Topic: FF8 Models, How did Qhimm rip them? (Read 48183 times)

Does anyone have a program or import/export plugin for viewing FF8 PC models?

First off, I have looked... for a long time... even to the point of reading almost every post with FF8 or FFVIII in the title...

I know Qhimm had something at some point, and there was a program on a site link somewhere for the battle models, but the archive is corrupt when I download it, and the previous versions are File not Found...(I think it was a Russian site)

The only links I can find are links to other threads, links to dead downloads, or dead links to other sites...In short, everything seems dead...

Qhimm, if you're around and read this, I would very much like to know how you ripped the FF8 models and if possible, a link to the tools to do so...

I really don't want to have to learn to read a file format in hex, and then learn to program an exporter myself... (not just for this anyway... not when I know other people have done it already)

Also, I tried extracting them with GardenEight and opening them in Mirex's Biturn(Several versions), but they came out with extremely messed up geometry, and some of the textures were wrong, so I couldn't use that...

Please, I really would like your(anyone's) help.

Thank you for your time.

I should note, that I am going to try decoding files in hex and writing exporters on several other types of files... but I still have a long way to go... and I would much prefer the FF8 models sooner than... 5 years from now... X_x... If it turns out I will need to decode them myself... I suppose it can't be helped... but I already am planning far too many model hacks...

FF9 Battle/Field models (I know there's been some work but I can't find any useful programs/info...)Megaman Legends 2 PSX modelsMetal Gear Solid 3 PS2 modelsAnd a few other games but I'm sure you can tell, I have the next 50 years of my life blown all to hell already =P

(If anyone is interested in those games formats... and happens to know a little about file hex-editing shoot me a message... maybe we can start a project...)

I'm not sure if it was Qhimm, halkun, or Cyb who posted pics of some ripped FF8 models a couple years back, but it was done somehow -- I remember seeing a beautiful screenie of the Ifrit summon in a model editor. I imagine the PC version will be tons easier to work with than the PSX version in this regard.

I don't believe the models were ever completely figured out though, or there was otherwise some problem hindering progress. Reminds me that I need to get around to studying the Chrono Cross model animation format, heh heh...

I'm gonna try to run it through a decompiler as soon as I find info on how they work and where to get a decent one.... hopefully there will be some info on the file structure in there that one of my associates can write a blender script to import.... Faust know's whom I mean...

If nothing else I may have info on the MCH field models.... I'll have to test it when I have my external HDD (which has my FF8 files) connected...

EDIT: Alright, Faust contacted me with this on another forum(Either way, I either missed it or somehow just didn't find it...), and the field model part does in fact work! This may have been posted here or elsewhere, I'm not certain, but as I have fount it to be working, I shall post the pertinent portion!

1) Download: _http://rapidshare.com/files/124242233/FF8_Edit.7z.html2) unrar it allThen1) Open Garden. Open - Decompile data files - name it. Then wait. When it stop go to:"ur folder with Garden"\ff8\data\eng\FIELD\model\main_chr

There will be files such us .mch this is battle and field models of main chars.

U can open it with Biturn.

Ok, so the only problem with this, is that there are no NPC characters, only main characters... (as implied) Which means NPC's must be stored in some other file... since this worked so swimmingly, I figure we should focus on Field models for now...

(A note about certain models... Some of the bone info on Rinoa, Seifer, Laguna, Irvine, etc. characters with dangling hair or capes or coats it seems, the bones are a bit off... for me it isn't a huge deal since I can fix the models later.... The main point is that the majority of the verts ARE in the right places.)

My task now, is to figure out where the NPC's are...

Side info on why I want them... I am in the process of planning a Garden/SeeD MMORPG where each player is a student, and the main FF8 characters are major quest NPCs/AdminsYou would get hired(via quest NPC) to go on missions, or (if you are not a SeeD) exams. Occasionally the Training Center might break down and monsters overrun Garden(Mob invasion weekend) Replenish health by sleeping in the dorm... Eat famous hotdogs....Toward the end of the game, the FF8 tie-in chapters begin, and Squall becomes the new Garden leader, etc...

Also, if I could somehow get the source for Triple Triad Gold, I'd integrate that into the game... Sound like fun? I think so anyway...

Anyway, to even TRY to do this, I would need lots of NPC's, like Cid, Kadowaki, Edea, and lots of random Garden students... (none of which do I have, though I have the FF8 mains in the Galbadian uniforms, so that's a step in the right direction....)

If I discover anything about NPC's I'll report it here, until then, I hope some of you who are reading but not posting will do some research too

Wowza! Just did some some investigation of the FF8 PC (as in Personal Computer version) battle models, which appear to be labeled with the c0mXXX.dat convention, with "XXX" representing the character model number I suppose. I'm going to link to what I believe are three examples of battle models:

So it appears that the model files themselves contain the texture(s) and also some sound data(!?). What really, really confuses me at the moment with regard to the model file header is that some pointers in the table are duplicative! Apparently, there's enough room for dec11 or 0x0B sections, but not all of them are always used. Sometimes there's a need for two AKAO (sound data) sections, for example, but if not, the slot normally attributed to the second sound section is just given to the texture section. Anyone know what's up with this? Is this a common practice?

I suppose I might as well dump what I know about the last section of the model -- it's a Classic .TIM, and I wouldn't be surprised if you ran it through PSicture and achieved readable results if you stripped off the header. Note that models use a number of 128x128 textures depending on how detailed they are I guess. Raijin uses 2 textures, but there's another model in the linked .RAR that appears to use 5(!!) textures.

Texture format:Header of (4+#T*4) bytes

#T #T #T #T T1 T1 T1 T1 - T2 T2 T2 T2 ... ...EF EF EF EF

Where... #T = Number of Textures applied to the model. T1 = Offset to the first texture relative to the section header T2 = Offset to the second texture relative to the section header ... etc EF = End of File! relative to the section header

Each .TIM seems to be either identical to or extremely reminiscent of what I call a "Classic .TIM" in this Compendium wiki.

Big thanks to X-Dina for the models; he could provide way more for further investigation, probably.

Since I don't actually own FF8 PC, the best I can do is properly detail the section subheaders, so others will know what to avoid hitting accidently when they try trial-and-error experiments.

Oh snap. Okay. Yeah, I can test these then, just a matter of nabbing enough free time. Once I finish some odds and ends from the Chrono Cross model project over at the Chrono Compendium, I'll move straight into this I guess.

Any qhimm regulars interested in helping us with a massive FF8 model project to make these babies viewable once and for all? For one thing, I think we'd need someone to code the model reader/Blender plugin because the person who did that for Chrono Cross is extremely strapped for time.

I would be happy to help in anyway I could. I don't think I could handle programming the reader but I would be happy to help with the models, I'm not great, but I'm getting it down. Just let me know when you have a program

Logged

koral

I thought that the FF8 Battle Models had been fully decoded and understood?

IIRC the FF8 battle data was vastly different from the Field models, and polys appeared to be randomly three or four vertex-constituted. The thing with FF8 was that its bone-skinned character system made it difficult to plot bone orientation without reading in some animation info too.

I could try give a hand and check that battle file Faust posted and see if I can cook up a viewer for it, but no promises Most of my free time gets spent on the Crises-Core data investigation, something I'm determined to help bring into the lime-light a little as it's been ignored for all these years.

koral

it certainly seemed like years (dirge of cerberus anyway, FF8 most definitly)

you don't have to do anything funny with your PSP, or anything at all for that matter.When the CC viewer eventually manages to load Characters properly you could always ask here for someone to send specific characters to you via pm or email or something (for "personal non-commercial use" ofcourse). Just let me know when the time comes, I'll be happy to oblige

but its good to hear from you x-dina, because you've convinced me you're still interested in the FF8 battle model files. I'll try my best to see what I can do to help

koral

I was just wondering, what exactly do you need from the FF8 Battle models? I've done some noseing around and it seems like:

A - it only consists of monsters and bosses (none of the main characters, except the "hypnotised" rinoa)B - skeleton data will NOT be easy to decipher at all, especially if you consider just how many battle-models there are

So if there's anything in particular you're after, then I could focus on only those models instead.

I'm totally in the same vain as FaustWolf though, that it would be really cool to see both the Field AND the Battle model formats fully understood and documented (just for the sake of completeness), but the way the data is so spaced out, unless there really was a NEED for all the understanding (mods etc) it really isn't worth the time.

Its quite a dated game, and although i love it to bits (rinoa's one of my all time favs) it really isn't worth squandering over the Battle model data considering that the main characters and NPCs are located elsewhere.

I've an open mind though, so if anyone can convince me otherwise then I might reconsider

Oh, and that CC-File-Viewer is something i cooked up whilst trying to understand all those raw data files.It can only view Textures so far, I will add an export option in the next release (due to popular demand) but I can already export out the textures for myself.If there's anything in particular you need just let me know, "I'll be here..."

- there have been some tries to decode FF8 format but with no final result. There were some viewers but no exporter.

- someone called "Kvaks" has created a "FF8 battle model viewer" or "Gerakl character editor", it was published at site kvaks.narod.ru. Site is still up, but viewer links are down. I have downloaded it back then, so here it is ( not original but smaller version of archive, original contained lots of models but it was 16mb, so I have removed most of models and now its 600kb to download ) : http://mirror.mypage.sk/kvaks.narod.ru/dir.php . It can view models and animate them. No export possibility. Author did not reply my e-mails back then.

- because there is no known specification, Biturn can't view most of ff8 models. It can read field models but with incorrect bone setup and no animation. It can read some things from battle models, but not much, usually only textures, few polygons, one object and rest is mess.

- Qhimm showed some screenshots but haven't released any program or specs so far

- if you'll be able to decode ff8 files I'll be happy to add ability to read it into Biturn, so it can be exported to various other formats. It will take some time as I'm busy with other projects. I think I have published all I know about the both battle and field 3D model formats in the forum threads below. If not and you're willing to continue on working on the formats post me a Personal Message and I'll sum you up all my info.

Pretty much all of the main characters have their own .mch files which are referenced in the actual field data files (rather than having to include the entire model in each field it's used). Other character models reside in the chara.one files found in the field files. Also, all animation data resides in the chara.one files, even for main character models. The animation data (found in the beginning of each model block in the chara.one files) is pretty much the only part of the model format that still eludes me; I have decoded the vertex data, face data, skeleton data and texture mapping data. Once I've understood the format of the animation data, I might compile a document on it, or write a small program to read the models. (just pleeease don't bug me about it )

Until then, here's a basic layout on the .mch files:

Index block, 64 DWORDs. Contains the offsets of each texture in the file, then a 0xFFFFFFFF, then the offset of the model data.

Vertex groups, or "limbs". These decide which vertices are connected to which skeletal node. Groups of 4 shorts, with the index of the first vertex, the number of vertices and the bone ID (1-based) to which they belong.

Teaser image of a decapitated Squall[/list]Side notes: The animation data somehow stores the internal rotations for the model's skeletal nodes using 4 bytes per node. I'm speculating that the format would be one which a PSX could handle, in line with the lazy programmers theorem. Any ideas?

Also, the battle model format is vastly different from the normal field model format. I haven't even been able to find any vertex data in it, I'm almost suspecting it's compressed or something.

BitTurn didn't show anyone properly except Cloud and Zack, so thanks to quimm, I was able to make my own viewer and see what Rinny really looked like in FF8:

File: d024.mch = low-poly rinoa in blue-dress(quite blocky and definitly low-LOD, never meant to be seen close-up like this)

File: 0d25.mch = high-poly rinoa in blue-dress( better, but her neck came out wrong thanks to experimental bone rotations)

My programming skills were even more rusty in those days so I couldn't get alpha to show up, but other than that everything was there in place. But I left it at that because I really didn't care as much about the other characters

The biggest issue was (and still is) that the bone-rotation data isn't in the MCH file. If only those rotations could be found, then these MCH Field-Models would be practically perfectly viewable and documented. I think quimm hinted that the animation data is inside the chara.one files, so it shouldn't be too difficult to wade through.

Battle models are another can of worms, but I believe the bone-rotations are there in those DAT files otherwise that "Battle-Model-Viewer" wouldn't have been able to show as many models as it does.I'd be happy to try look for it, especially now that you have openly declared yourself again to the "long-forgotten cause for FF8 model viewing".

CC has my priority though, the FF7 universe is far more intriguing to me than FF8

Hi Koral, sorry about the misunderstanding, I have forgotten few things from back then. I did not want to offend anyone if that happened. Now I see that Qhimm did post quite a specification for field models.

Logged

koral

It was joking when I said I was "annoyed", because you just brought to our attention again the fact that FF8 is really not very well documented anywhere.Even quimm's post isn't very easy to find, so there's no doubt people would naturally miss it and assume it wasn't documented at all.You just forgot, who would be offended by that?

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask, but I will anyway:

will you (ever) work on Biturn again?It would be cool if it could view some of the Crises-Core files, but you did say you were strapped for time so its no biggie really.

Its just that I don't think my CC-File-Viewer viewer is the "best" file-viewer in the world

Ah, then I take my apology back . I'm still getting a little confused by language barrier, you know.

With Biturn its like I don't plan to work on it, at least not in 2009. But if there would be someone who wants Biturn to read/write some data and that making it work would not take me long time ( there would be precise specifications and enough test data ) then I would gladly update Biturn.

As for the FF8 models, the MCH is indeed field models for characters... Squall's has ALMOST perfect bone rotation in Biturn, (a few problems with shoulders, but easily corrected...

The problem in Biturn is that all of the assumed bone rotations are the same, so it tries to rotate the bones for Seifer into the same orientation as Squall, however, Seifer has more bones than Squall, and they are numbered differently... Causing a catastrophic mess...

Zell, however, has one less, so his bones also come out near perfect.

The c0m prefixed files are all enemies/enemy weapons (Seifer and his Hyperion gunblade are separate files.) The d#w and d#c prefixed files are weapons and characters respectively. (the # stands for sequential numbering, w apparently 'weapon,' c apparently 'character')

All of the models are in there, but only the enemy models load in kvaks' "editor"... occasionally I can load Squall or the gunblade, but with no textures.... otherwise it simply crashes...

If we could decompile that "editor" we could fix it seemingly easily... the only problems with it are A it loads all bone rotations backwards (which is why the hands, feet, and heads look backwards. It is in fact, all of the bones.

As for what I need of the battle models... I really only need to be able to export the geometry and texture mapping... if I can export the geometry properly, then I can apply my own skeleton... however, if I could export the geometry with the skeleton still mapped and weighted, the bone rotations wouldn't be important. I can fix the rotations in Maya, provided the bones are all weighted correctly.

As for the general populace, I would hope to eventually have proper animations/textures/bones/etc... but... whatever we get is what we will work with for now...

So, you have a model viewer for crisis core already? I don't care how crude it is, could I see a screenshot...? Or did you mean something else when you said file viewer?

I've been documenting all my findings in the first post there, so as soon as I can solve the character-mesh format, there should be enough of a specification for mirex to maybe add in support for them into Biturn (*fingers crossed*)This is the post which summarises best what I've so far acomplished and what I have yet to do: http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=8163.msg98757#msg98757

Now, onto FF8

I didn't realise that character battle data were also present, because it now gives me new motivation to try pull the Rinoa battle-model out too! Everything else would probably follow

Bones are the biggest problem, for both battle and field models.If only we knew where and how the bone-rotation data for MCH files were stored, then it would be easy for either mirex or myself (or anyone else interested) to make those characters perfectly displayed and export-able.

I'd prefer to start from "scratch" rather than try decompile anything mirex has posted a bunch of useful links and FaustWolf's post above is handy enough.

Could you tell me which battle files would be worth me starting with?I have FF8 on my PC so its not a problem with the data, but I don't really have any idea which file is supposed to be who, and I prefer not to stare at ugly monsters while trying to render them

Having just now looked over your viewer... I'm very tempted to switch over to CCFF7 now... I wouldn't be disappointing anyone if I did that, now would I? *glances around*

Sorry, I just got back and don't have patience right off to read through all of it, but I'm guessing your machine enemies work because they have no bones/no bone geometry deformation...(Also I'm way too tired to try to make sense of offsets and such right now...)

It may not be the "Best program in the world" but as far as I'm aware it IS the best Crisis Core model viewer around. Unless there's another kvaks out there I don't think you've got much competition...

I didn't, however, see a download link<- Bah, I missed the first line XP... I'ma look over it again... in truth just having the textures that you've obviously succeeded in getting would make me a happy little model-thief(as in ripping... don't take that wrong...) for a good while.